


Everything Is Good (Chapter One)

by flipflop_diva, Tipsy_Kitty



Series: The Not-So-Good Place [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Crossover, Gen, POV Natasha Romanov, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-The Good Place Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-07-31 06:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20111002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty
Summary: “Hi, Natasha,” the blonde woman started. “I’m Eleanor.”“Okay.”“You’re dead. You're in The Good Place."For Natasha, it just got worse from there.





	Everything Is Good (Chapter One)

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### Download

  * **Mediafire: **[mp3](https://www.mediafire.com/file/c6htwg5xl518p89/The_Not-So-Good-Place_Chapter_1.mp3/file) | [m4b](https://www.mediafire.com/file/o4ijkyd6zixuxnh/The_Not-So-Good_Place_Chapter_1.m4b/file)
  * **Size:** 18MB | 14MB 
  * **Duration:** 00:19:48 

### Stream  
  
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**Chapter One**

Natasha opened her eyes. She was sitting on a couch in what looked like a waiting room. A huge sign reading “Welcome” was hanging on the wall across from her.

She was instantly on high alert. She scanned the room, but there was no one else there. There was no sound either.

The room didn’t look at all familiar, and she had a feeling she had not come here willingly, but there was something wrong with her memory … she had been doing something important, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t seem to remember _anything_.

Just as she was about to reach for one of the guns she always had in the holster on her thigh, a door in the far corner swung open. A woman with short blonde hair and a huge grin was standing there.

“Natasha,” she called to her, “We’re ready for you.”

Natasha’s hand slid down to her leg, but instead of the cool metal she expected to find, she found an empty space. 

A sense of dread instantly overcame her. She tried to focus in on the other areas of her body. She couldn’t feel any of the weapons she normally had on her — tucked in her bra or pushed up under her sleeve, her widow’s bites around her wrist. They were gone.

The blonde woman was still standing at the door, waiting patiently for her. “It’s okay,” the blonde woman told her. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Natasha had a feeling that wasn’t quite true, but she stood up anyway and walked past the blonde woman into what looked like an office. There was a huge mahogany desk on one end, and behind and beside it, a collection of books and papers and a painting of someone she didn’t recognize but who looked a little too ordinary to be honored with such an elaborate work of art. 

The blonde woman was pointing her toward a chair in front of the desk. Slowly, Natasha walked over to it and sat down as the blonde woman took a seat behind the desk, folded her hands and gazed at her kindly.

“Hi, Natasha,” the blonde woman started. “I’m Eleanor.”

“Okay.”

“You’re dead.”

Natasha blinked. “What?” For a moment, she expected Tony or Clint or Scott Lang or someone to jump out at her, laughing hysterically over their absurd practical joke, but Eleanor wasn’t laughing and everything else was silent and then …

A flash of a memory.

Vormir. Fighting Clint. The Soul Stone.

Oh.

Oh!

“Did we win?” she asked Eleanor, because suddenly it was the only thing that mattered. “Did we save the world?”

Eleanor’s expression didn’t change. “Earthly matters aren’t important anymore,” she said.

“They’re important to me!”

Eleanor ignored that. “You’re in The Good Place now, Natasha. You don’t need to worry about anything.”

The Good Place? Well, that was surprising. She definitely wouldn’t have expected that. But that didn’t answer her question.

“Please? I need to know.”

Again, Eleanor ignored her plea. Instead, she asked, “Would you like to have a tour?”

No. She actually had about a million questions, and she really wanted — _needed_ — to know if their plan worked. If Clint was safe. If Steve was safe. If they got everyone back. But Eleanor was still looking at her with that sweet smile and Natasha had a horrible suspicion she wasn’t going to get an answer as to what had happened after she … after she what? She couldn’t exactly remember what had happened apart from fighting with Clint atop the cliffs, but she was dead, so she must have gone over like she wanted.

“Okay,” she said to Eleanor, because she didn’t really feel like there was any other option. And maybe if she did what Eleanor wanted, she could convince her to tell her the truth later.

“Great!” Eleanor said, her grin widening. She stood up and a door that Natasha was pretty sure hadn’t been there before appeared suddenly in the wall, swinging open to reveal what looked like the downtown area of a very small town. “Follow me!”

•••

Natasha’s first thought was that this place, wherever it was, was not somewhere she would ever have willingly picked to live. It was too brightly colored. Too many cheerful people walking hand in hand. Too many little shops and restaurants with their homey feels and welcome signs. And why were there so many frozen yogurt shops? Did people even need to eat when they were dead? And if they did, were there choices other than dessert?

Eleanor either noticed her looking or she could read her thoughts — that was probably a thing if someone were a, what, an angel? God? Natasha had so many questions.

“So unlike what most people think The Good Place is like,” Eleanor was saying, “it’s actually a series of little neighborhoods that have been carefully cultivated by the Architect in charge. That’s me. I’m the Architect!”

“Okay,” Natasha said. She supposed she should have been impressed.

“And I have put together the perfect place for the three hundred and twenty-two residents of our humble little town,” Eleanor continued, not phased at all by Natasha’s lack of excitement. “It’s the ideal place for all of you!”

Natasha strongly disagreed with that already, but she had a feeling she was supposed to be overjoyed, so she nodded and tried to look at least slightly pleased.

“Would you like to try a frozen yogurt?” Eleanor had stopped in front of one of the many, many little shops, this one with a neon pink sign screaming that it was the “Froyo Factory! Where Yogurt Dreams Come True!”. 

“They have every flavor imaginable,” Eleanor added.

Natasha eyed the people in line. They looked almost too happy, like someone was forcing them to act like they’d never been so excited to eat dessert before.

“No,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

“That’s understandable,” Eleanor said, and she dropped her voice in what Natasha thought was supposed to be a comforting tone. “You’ve been through a lot. Why don’t I show you to your new home?”

“Sure.”

•••

Natasha’s new home was the most ridiculously lavish mansion she had ever seen in her life. It even put Avengers Tower to shame, with floors and ceilings actually created out of gold, with diamonds encrusted into the walls and the marble floors, and emeralds and rubies adorning the bannisters of the sweeping staircase.

She looked longingly out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the cute little cottage she could see across the wide swatch of lawn before turning to Eleanor.

“Are you sure this is mine?” she asked.

“Of course! Don’t you love it?” Eleanor was beaming at her. “I created every residence to perfectly fit each person’s deepest desires and preferences.”

Natasha stared at the drapes made of rich red velvet and was a thousand percent sure she had never desired any such thing.

“It’s just … not what I would have expected,” she said.

“Ah, yes, well, deepest desires and preferences can be like that!” Eleanor said. She waved an arm around the front foyer, which was so large they could have parked a Quinjet inside it, with room to spare. “Why don’t you take some time to settle in? And remember that park I showed you, next to the Froyo Like It’s Hot shop? There’s a town meeting there in an hour. Janet will tell you when it’s time.”

“Who’s Ja-” Natasha started, but before the words were fully out of her mouth, a woman with dark hair and a very perky smile, wearing dark purple overalls over a collared blue and purple shirt, appeared out of nowhere in front of her.

“Hello,” she said. “I am Janet.”

“Janet can get you anything you want,” Eleanor said. “She’s like a real-life version of Google, but better.”

“Much better,” Janet agreed.

Natasha’s mind was spinning. This could not be happening, right? Maybe she was in a coma. Maybe this was some sort of drug-induced dream. But Eleanor and Janet and this horrible mansion looked real enough.

“Okay,” she finally said, because Eleanor and Janet were staring at her and she figured she should say something.

“And then after the meeting, you will meet your soulmate!” Eleanor said.

“My what?” 

“Don’t worry! You’ll love her!” Eleanor said, and then before Natasha could even begin to process that, Eleanor and Janet were gone and Natasha was alone in an enormous house she really, really didn’t want to be in.

“If this really is The Good Place,” she whispered to herself, “I don’t want to see The Bad one.”

•••

Natasha’s soulmate did not get the message that they were supposed to meet after the town meeting. Before Natasha could even turn all the way around to look more closely at the awful house she was to reside in for eternity, the front door swung open and in walked a woman who very much appeared to belong to the gold and jeweled house. She was dark-haired and beautiful and wearing a low-cut black silk evening dress and high heels in the middle of the afternoon — or at least Natasha thought it was the middle of the afternoon. She supposed she probably should have asked how time worked in this place.

The woman stopped in front of her and smiled sweetly at her. “Natasha, dear, I am so glad to meet you finally!”

Natasha just stared at the woman, who was now twirling around, the full skirt of her dress flying a little behind her.

“Isn’t this house just gorgeous?” she said. “It’s just what I’ve always dreamed about. Haven’t you?”

“It is something,” Natasha said, and then, “And you are?”

“Oh!” The woman looked startled. “I almost forgot my manners. I am Tahani Al-Jamil.” She paused, like she was waiting for Natasha to react. When she didn’t, Tahani added. “Surely you have heard of me?”

“No.”

“No?” Tahani looked taken aback. “I’m very famous. Not to brag, of course, but I do have many, many fans. Even more than my sister, I must say. You surely know of my sister, right? Kamilah Al-Jamil.”

Natasha shook her head. “I don’t really keep up with celebrity news,” she said. By Tahani’s horrified look, she got the feeling she was supposed to apologize for not knowing her. It was a very disconcerting feeling. She decided to take the conversation another direction. “You’re my … soul mate? Or something?”

Tahani’s disapproval vanished from her face at that. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I am! And I have been waiting to meet you!”

“Waiting? How long have you been here?”

“Oh.” Tahani waved her hand in the air like she was brushing off the comment. “Time isn’t really a thing here, you’ll come to find out. It’s meaningless.”

“Okay.” Natasha forced herself to smile at Tahani. “This is all a bit … overwhelming.”

“Oh, yes,” Tahani said. “I do remember my first few days. But luckily for you, you have me.” And then she threw her arms around Natasha in a giant hug.

“Lucky for me,” Natasha muttered into Tahani’s shoulder, and she tried not to wonder how long eternity was going to last.

•••

Tahani talked nonstop the entire time up to the town meeting. She pulled Natasha by the hand to explore every room of the house, pointing out every insignificant detail until Natasha was so bored she was wishing she could just crawl into a hole in the ground and stay there for eternity. It had to be better than this.

Tahani, to her credit, did intermingle in a lot of answers to questions Natasha hadn’t asked her but had been mulling around in her mind. They didn’t need to eat or do any such thing now that they were dead, but they could because it was fun. The town was set up to provide everything that everyone who lived here needed. There were gyms and shooting ranges and a ballet studio. Eleanor, who Natasha had met, was the Architect, and Michael was her assistant. They had planned out the town and could still alter those plans if anyone discovered anything was missing. Janet was a Good Place version of a robot who knew everything but could also provide most everything. (Tahani demonstrated this by calling on Janet and having her dress them for the town meeting with the snap of her fingers. Natasha pretended to be thrilled by the yellow ruffled sundress she was now wearing.) And, finally, everyone in town was paired with their soulmate, which had been determined by some algorithm that Eleanor and Michael had access to, and since they were immortals and angels, there was no way they were wrong. (Natasha also learned the whole Good Place Bad Place system functioned as a very complicated organization, with Architects and assistants and even interns, and as much as she wanted to know more, it was a lot to take in at once. Especially since she was still having a little trouble reminding herself that she was dead and this was inexplicably her life — or death — now.)

Tahani didn’t seem to mind that Natasha wasn’t very talkative, perfectly willing to fill in all the silences with her own chatter. She seemed to know Natasha had been “a secret agent” as she called her but if she knew about SHIELD or the Avengers or any of the horrors of Natasha’s past, she didn’t mention them.

She also seemed to know a lot of people in the town, and again, Natasha wondered how long she had been there. She waved and smiled and stopped every other foot on their way to the town meeting to say hello to someone or compliment their outfit or ask if they had tried the new Italian restaurant that had just opened.

Natasha didn’t really pay attention to most of it. She was instead staring around at all the other people they were passing. Most were smiling and laughing, dressed in everything from shorts and tank tops to sweatpants and t-shirts with stains on them to some guy dressed as a clown and a woman walking around in a bikini with stilettos. And then, almost as if by fate — she wondered if that were actually a thing. She had been wrong about The Good Place existing after all — the crowd of people in front of her seemed to part and she saw, standing near the front of a long row of folding chairs set up in front of a stage and a podium, talking to Eleanor, someone she would have recognized anywhere.

“Tony.”

He looked up from his conversation, saw her and then was rushing toward her. He grabbed her in his arms, tucking her into his chest, as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing.

“Nat,” he whispered into her hair.

She pulled back, half relieved to see a friendly face but half horrified that he was here.

“How are you here?” she asked. “Did we lose?” A panic welled up inside her and she tried to scan the crowd for any more people they might know, but Tony was still holding her in his arms and blocking most of her view.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “We won.”

In an instant, the panic was replaced by relief so strong she felt her knees buckle slightly. She thought she probably would have fallen if Tony hadn’t been gripping her so hard.

“We won?” she repeated faintly. “We got them back?”

“We got them back.”

“So it worked.” She exhaled slowly, and she felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes. It had worked.

She wanted to say more, but there was a loud crackling noise and Eleanor the Architect was standing at the microphone on the stage.

“I need everyone to take their seats!” she called.

Tony took her hand, much the same way Tahani had been holding her hand earlier. 

Tahani.

Natasha looked around to see where in fact Tahani had gone, but she seemed to have vanished. 

“Come on,” Tony was saying, as he pulled her along next to him. “Gamora is here, too.”

“Gamora?” She tried to think why that name sounded so familiar.

“Nebula’s sister,” Tony said. “Thanos threw her off Vormir. You two have a lot in common.”

The stories Nebula had shared about the sister she had once hated until it was too late popped back to the forefront of her mind. But she didn’t have time to ask questions. The lights — or was it the sky? — was dimming, and Tony led her over to two empty seats, about halfway back in the collection of chairs, next to a very pretty green-skinned woman with long red hair.

“Nat’s here too!” Tony said to Gamora, like they had run into each other at a party and not because they were all dead, and Natasha and Gamora managed to nod at each other before Eleanor called for everyone’s attention again.

“Welcome to The Good Place!” Eleanor said into the microphone, her voice echoing loudly and clearly across the crowd, and a huge round of applause and cheers went up from the audience. “Michael and I are so happy you all are here!”

Natasha saw an older man, with white hair, standing off stage near Eleanor. He raised his hand in a slight greeting.

“Before we go over some important information about our beautiful new home, we have a little slide show for you all.” Eleanor backed up to the side of the stage, and instantly, a giant screen, much like one that would be found in a movie theater, appeared behind where she had just been standing. The white-haired guy, Michael, appeared on the screen and began to talk. Natasha tried to pay attention to the explanation of the point system that had brought them all here to The Good Place but all she could really focus on was Tony sitting next to her. He said they had won, but he was here. Did they lose anyone else? Was Thanos dead? What was the world like now?

Michael on screen was still talking, explaining how every good deed and every bad deed came with a certain amount of points, positive and negative, and how only the people with the very highest points made it here to The Good Place. He talked about how scientists and Nobel Peace Prize winners and even a couple saints hadn’t managed to make it here and how they should be so proud.

Natasha looked over at Tony and Gamora, but they were both watching the screen intently. A weird feeling was forming in the pit of her stomach, the same kind of feeling she used to get when something was about to go sideways on a mission or she was about to find out people she thought she trusted were actually Hydra.

How exactly was she in The Good Place with all the sins of her past?

A rustle in the front of the audience interrupted her thoughts. People were standing up, straining to look. Eleanor the Architect rushed to the microphone as Michael on the screen kept talking.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” Eleanor said in to the microphone. “Our last resident has finally arrived, and I believe everyone out there knows who this fine man is. He did, after all, score the highest point value any Good Place community has ever seen!” She paused for dramatic effect. “Everyone! Please welcome Captain America himself, Steve Rogers!”

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued ...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] falling into sand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24302077) by [Akaihyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaihyou/pseuds/Akaihyou)


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